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FRIDAY, SEPT. 17, 1920
THE TOILER
PAGE 7
The Suffrage Sham
By Harry Stone
The mentally emancipated worker cannot
help but view with distrust the recent granting,
after many years of bitter struggle, of the right
of suffrage to more than twenty million women.
The idea is spreading among the workers more
and more that no permanent good can ever be
gotten, under the capitalist system, through the
medium of voting. When they really want any
thing they use other means the strike, for in
stance. This is true of the every day struggle.
Voting, also, cuts little figure in the calculations
of those who are seriously thinking and working
to organize the workers for future control of in
dustry and government.
But, more to the point, can woman suffrage,
excepting through its educational possibilities,
help the masses of working people? NO. In the
first place, the capitalist politicians wouldn't have
granted it if this were the case. They are in the
business of hamstringing the working class, not
helping it out. But more detailed reasons why wo
man suffrage does not menace the control of the
paradte class can be gben if they are needed.
Working Women in Minority
The majority of women who got the vote and
who will use it most were the women of the up
per crust and middle-class elements. These wo
men are well satisfied with things as they are and
will not support any effort to change them by the
ballot or other means. They can be safely trust
ed to act on the side of the capitalists and against
the wokers whenever the issue is raised in an
election. Their votes, as well as their hearts, will
lie where their treasure is.
Besides the fact that a majority of the wo
men voters will be of non-working class elements,
it is the way the suffrage is juggled and controll
ed that makes assurance doubtly sure for the rul
ing class. Throughout the country we see the
wives of the rich men organizing propaganda
societies for the piupose of "educating" women
voters to their particular brand of politics. The
mediums of publicity are open to them the press,
pulpits, magazines, etc. The working class press
and otheiimeans of spreading propaganda and in
formation are pitifully small in comparison.
Woman suffrage, on the whole, will be a con
servative force. Indeed, that is why the capitalist
class permitted women to have the vote. In order
to overcome the growing disillusionment among
the workers in regard to the ballot, the ruling
class must steadily increase or, rather, pretend
to increase suffrage rights It is hardly likely
that suffrage rights will be taken away entirely,
although it has been done, in effect, in many cases
by short sighted politicians such as those who
controlled the New York Assembly and who fired
out the five elected socialists because they didn't
like their looks.
The Ballot Box Illusion.
But the "wise" capitalists are not in favor of
this kind of action because that destroys one of
their strongest weapons the illusion of the work
ers that through the ballot they really have some
thing to say about the government.
Capitalism needs for its preservation every
tool that it now makes use of. As long as the
workers are willing to have their slavery con
firmed by elections, the ruling class will not ob
ject. They will even permit special elections in
between the regular ones for that purpose, if ne
cessary. As we have said, this delusion about the
value and power of the ballot in the hands of the
workers is one of the things that holds capitalist
rule up. Sooner or later we have got to get it out
of our heads. It is true that working class part
ies in other countries have njade good use of pol
itical campaigns for propaganda purposes. And
once in a while a true revolutionist like Liebknecht
has been elected to a legislative body and used it
as a sounding board for revolutionary speeches.
This is necessary to be done, and no doubt it will
be done here in this countiy.
But this is only sabotaging the governmental
institutions not trying to use them for the purpose
of emancipating the workers. This is a job that
cannot be done through the use of any machinery
made for the purpose of enslaving them. A gov
ernment suited to the needs of the working class
would be one in which the right to vote would be
restricted to productive workers. Then all the
power would lie in their hands and suffrage
would really mean something.